Michael Wieck

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Michael Wieck (born July 19, 1928 in Königsberg ) is a German violinist and author .

Live and act

Michael Wieck was born in Königsberg as the son of the musicians Kurt Wieck and Hedwig Wieck-Hulisch. His parents were the founders of the famous Königsberg string quartet . Wieck is also a half-great-nephew (= grandson of half-brother Bernhard Wieck , * 1845) of Clara Schumann . For some time, his father Kurt Wieck received violin lessons from Joseph Joachim, who frequented the house of Bernhard Wieck, Michael's grandfather, in Berlin-Grunewald . As the child of a Jewish mother and raised in the Jewish faith, Michael Wieck felt the persecution of National Socialism early on, despite his “ Aryan ” father as a “recognized Jew ” . Nevertheless, he managed to survive in Königsberg even after the British bombing in August 1944, under siege of the city for several months until it was captured by the Red Army in April 1945 and under their occupation. As a German, he was temporarily interned by the NKVD in the Rothenstein internment camp, described by him as "Rothenstein concentration camp". Only after three years of living under extreme conditions - 80% of the Germans remaining in the city perished - did he and his parents receive an exit permit. After arriving in Germany, the father separated from the family.

Michael Wieck managed to escape from the quarantine camp Kirchmöser in the Soviet Zone to West Berlin . The mother and son then lived in this town, where Wieck began studying music at the conservatory. From 1952 to 1961 he played the first violin in the RIAS Symphony Orchestra Berlin under Ferenc Fricsay . He was second concertmaster in the Berlin Chamber Orchestra .

In 1950 Wieck married his wife Hildegard. His father-in-law had been interned in the Soviet Buchenwald special camp. The marriage had four children. During a visit to Israel in 1956, Wieck explored whether this country could become a home for him and his family with a Christian wife. Because of the “intolerance of the Orthodox Jews” that was out of the question for him.

In 1961 Wieck emigrated to New Zealand with his family. One reason was the sealing off of West Berlin by the wall in the same year. Wieck was a senior violin lecturer at Auckland University for seven years . He confessed that he had "looked in vain for a new home in New Zealand". "The roots of our being could not be torn out of the German reason."

After his return, Wieck was first concertmaster of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under the conductor Karl Münchinger and from 1974 until his retirement in 1993 he was first violinist in the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra , of which he was also a member of the orchestra board.

In 1989 Wieck published his book Testimony from the Fall of Königsberg - A Jew of Validity Reports , which Siegfried Lenz provided with a foreword. In the same year he received the Andreas Gryphius gift of honor .

The actress Dorothea Wieck was a cousin of Michael Wieck.

Honors

Works

  • Testimony to the fall of Königsberg. A prominent Jew reports . Preface by Siegfried Lenz . Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-51115-5 . 2nd edition 2009. ISBN 978-3-406-59599-8 .
  • Eternal War or Eternal Peace? Haag + Herchen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89846-508-3 .
  • with Jörn Pekrul: The synagogues and Jewish life in Königsberg . Königsberger Bürgerbrief 93 (2019), pp. 37–43.
  • Martin Bergau: The boy from the Amber Coast: experienced contemporary history 1938 - 1948. With a foreword by Michael Wieck and with documents about the Jewish death marches in 1945 . Heidelberg: Heidelberger Verlags-Anstalt, 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Wieck: Testimony of the fall of Königsberg . Beck, Munich 2005, p. 357.
  2. ↑ Michael Wieck: Testimony of the fall of Königsberg . Beck, Munich 2005, p. 369.
personal data
SURNAME Wieck, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German violinist and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg